Local residents have a unique opportunity to participate in a candidate forum featuring people running for Cincinnati City Council that will occur this Saturday.

As it has done for the past few election cycles, The Greenwich nightclub in Walnut Hills will host the forum, which currently is scheduled to include all 23 candidates vying for the nine council seats. This year, the forum's theme is “Cincinnati 2012: Diary of a City in Transition,” and it will be held from 7:30-11 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public, although seating is limited.

More than 20 Occupy Cincinnati protesters last night received citations for staying at Piatt Park after its official closing time, a process which included warnings by police and then some peaceful ticketing before police left the occupiers to their business. CityBeat has launched a page dedicated to our ongoing coverage of the protests, including a live feed of #occupycincinnati and #occupycincy hashtags.

Occupy Cincinnati has changed the location of its first-scheduled occupation, which will take place 11 a.m. Saturday at Lytle Park rather than Sawyer Point, due to a previously scheduled event. (The Revolutionaries are respectful of other organizations' fundraising walks.) The occupation has no scheduled end time. Several unions in New York City have endorsed the protest and plan to join it today. Here's a live stream of Day 19 in NYC.

Protest over corporate money in politics will take place in Cincinnati Saturday

The Occupy Wall Street movement plans to occupy Sawyer Point this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., one of several protests planned in other cities since the protest over corporate money in politics began more than three weeks ago in New York. (UPDATE: The protest has been moved to Lytle Park due to an already scheduled event at Sawyer Point.)

As part of CityBeat's continuing election coverage, we’ve once again sent a questionnaire to the non-incumbent Cincinnati City Council candidates to get their reactions on a broad range of issues.

Nine of the 14 non-incumbents chose to answer our questions. Others either didn’t respond or couldn’t meet the deadline.

During the next few weeks, we will print the responses from the non-incumbents to a different topic each time.

Today’s question is, “What is your stance on the property tax rollback? Do you believe the city's property tax rate should be increased to the maximum 6.1 mills allowed under the charter, or remain at a rate to generate $28.9 million each year, or be decreased? Please explain your answer.”

A group of state lawmakers will hold a Town Hall-style meeting Thursday to discuss issues affecting African-American residents in Greater Cincinnati.

The Ohio Legislative Black Caucus is sponsoring the event, called The State of African Americans in Ohio. Among those attending are State Sen. Eric Kearney (D-North Avondale), State Rep. Dale Mallory (D-West End) and State Rep. Alicia Reece (D-Bond Hill).

Several groups are teaming up to sponsor a forum on Friday for candidates running for Cincinnati City Council.

So far, seven candidates — including one incumbent — have indicated they will attend the session. They are Councilman Wendell Young, a Democrat; Nicholas Hollan, Jason Riveiro, Chris Seelbach and P.G. Sittenfeld, also Democrats; and Kevin Flynn and Yvette Simpson, who are Charterites.